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In November 2015, the European Union introduced detailed rules on net neutrality via Regulation 2015/2120/EU ("EU Regulation"). EU law obliges internet service providers to treat all traffic equally, when providing internet access services, without discrimination, restriction or interference, and irrespective of the sender and receiver, the content accessed or distributed, the applications or services used or provided, or the terminal equipment used. In addition, the EU Regulation has amended the EU rules on roaming services and will abolish roaming charges with effect from June 15, 2017. Against this background, the German Parliament is currently discussing a bill, which will ensure enforcement of the EU Regulation in Germany. The bill still has to pass the two chambers of the German Parliament and probably will not be signed into law before the start of 2017. Under the proposed legislation, the Federal Network Agency ("BNetzA") will be in charge of supervision and enforcement of the EU Regulation. In particular, the BNetzA will be able to enforce compliance with the EU Net Neutrality and Roaming Rules through "appropriate" regulatory measures including – as a measure of last resort and subject to the principle of proportionality – prohibiting the provision of the public telecommunications service in question. The BNetzA may impose enforcement payments of up to EUR 500,000 to ensure compliance. To this end, the BNetzA will also be able to request any information from operators of public telecommunications networks and providers of publicly available telecommunications services necessary for compliance with the EU Regulation. Finally, infringements of the EU Roaming Rules will trigger administrative fines of up to EUR 100,000. Non-compliance with the EU Net Neutrality Rules could even trigger administrative fines of up to EUR 500,000. If the financial benefit derived from a breach exceeds these amounts, the fines could be even higher (skimming of profits). For more information, please contact Joachim Scherer, Caroline Heinickel or Andreas Neumann.

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